After dinner, Shanti asked Kedarnath, "Why did you marry her?" referring to his present wife. "Had we not decided that you will not remarry?" Kedarnath had no reply. During his stay at Delhi, Kedarnath found Shanti Devi's behavior similar to that of Lugdi in many ways. Before retiring for the night, he asked to be allowed to talk with her alone and later said that he was fully convinced that Shanti Devi was his wife Lugdi Bai because there were many things she had mentioned which no one except Lugdi could have known. Shanti Devi became upset before Kedarnath's return to Mathura on November 15. She begged to be allowed to go to Mathura with him but her parents refused. Her story spread all over the country through the media and many intellectuals got interested in it. When Mahatma Gandhi heard about it, he called Shanti Devi, talked to her, and then requested her to stay in his ashram. (When I interviewed Shanti Devi in 1986, she still remembered the incident.) Gandhi appointed a committee of 15 prominent people, including parliamentarians, national leaders, and members from the media, to study the case. The committee persuaded her parents to allow her to accompany them to Mathura. They left by rail with Shanti Devi on November 24, 1935. The committee's report describes some of what happened: "As the train approached Mathura, she became flushed with joy and remarked that by the time they reach Mathura the doors of the temple of Dwarkadhish would be closed. Her exact language was,'Mandir ke pat band ho jayenge,' so typically used in Mathura. "The first incident which attracted our attention on reaching Mathura happened on the platform itself. The girl was in L. Deshbandhu's arms. He had hardly gone 15 paces when an older man, wearing a typical Mathura dress, whom she had never met before, came in front of her, mixed in the small crowd, and paused for a while. She was asked whether she could recognize him. His presence reacted so quickly on her that she at once came down from Mr. Gupta's lap and touched the stranger's feet with deep veneration and stood aside. On inquiring, she whispered in L. Deshbandhu's ear that the person was her 'Jeth' (older brother of her husband). All this was so spontaneous and natural that it left everybody stunned with surprise. The man was Babu Ram Chaubey, who was really the elder brother of Kedarnath Chaubey." The committee members took her in a tonga, instructing the driver to follow her directions. On the way she described the changes that had taken place since her time, which were all correct. She recognized some of the important landmarks which she had mentioned earlier without having been there. As they neared the house, she got down from the tonga and noticed an elderly person in the crowd. She immediately bowed to him and told others that he was her father-in-law, and truly it was so. When she reached the front of her house, she went in without any hesitation and was able to locate her bedroom. She also recognized many items of hers. She was tested by being asked where the "jajroo" (lavatory) was, and she told where it was. She was asked what was meant by "katora." She correctly said that it meant paratha (a type of fried pancake). Both words are prevalent only in the Chaubes of Mathura and no outsider would normally know of them. Shanti then asked to be taken to her other house where she had lived with Kedarnath for several years. She guided the driver there without any difficulty. One of the committee members, Pandit Neki Ram Sharma, asked her about the well of which she had talked in Delhi. She ran in one direction; but, not finding a well there, she was confused. Even then she said with some conviction that there was a well there. Kedarnath removed a stone at that spot and, sure enough, they found a well. As for the buried money, Shanti Devi took the party to the second floor and showed them a spot where they found a flower pot but no money. The girl, however, insisted that the money was there. Kedarnath later confessed that he had taken out the money after Lugdi's death. When she was taken to her parents' home, where at first she identified her aunt as her mother, but soon corrected her mistake, she went to sit in her lap. She also recognized her father. The mother and daughter wept openly at their meeting. It was a scene which moved everybody there. Shanti Devi was then taken to Dwarkadhish temple and to other places she had talked of earlier and almost all her statements were verified to be correct. The publication of the committee's report attracted worldwide attention. Many learned personalities, including saints, parapsychologists, and philosophers came to study the case, some in support and some as critics trying to prove it a hoax. I met Shanti Devi, first in February 1986 and then in December 1987, and interviewed her in detail about her past-life memories and her recollections at Mathura. I also interviewed her younger brother, Viresh Narain Mathur, who had accompanied her to Mathura on her first visit. Then I went to Mathura and asked her various relatives to describe when Shanti Devi first visited them at the age of nine. I also interrogated a close friend of Kedarnath who gave me some explicit information about the way Kedarnath became convinced that Shanti was actually his wife in her past life. Lugdi's brother told me that Shanti Devi, after seeing some women there, remembered her old friends and inquired about them. Similarly, Lugdi's sister informed me that Shanti Devi told a number of womenfolk about Lugdi having lent them some money, which they accepted as true. Shanti's emotional reactions on meeting relatives from her previous life were very significant. The manner in which she burst into tears on meeting the parents of her past life moved everyone present there. The committee mentioned in their report that it was a blessing that the past lives are forgotten. They felt that by bringing Shanti Devi to Mathura they had taken a big responsibility, and we had to forcibly separate her from the parents she had in the previous life. During my investigations, a friend of Kedarnath, 72-year-old Pandit Ramnath Chaube, told me of a very significant event, which I confirmed from other sources. When Kedarnath was in Delhi to meet Shanti Devi, he stayed at Pandit Ramnath Chaube's place for one night. Everyone had gone to retire, and only Kedarnath, his wife, his son Navneet, and Shanti were in the room; Navneet was fast asleep. Kedarnath asked Shanti that when she was suffering from arthritis and could not get up, how did she become pregnant. She described the whole process of intercourse with him, which left Kedarnath in no doubt that Shanti was his wife Lugdi in her previous life. When I mentioned this incident to Shanti Devi during my interview with her, she said, "Yes, that is what fully convinced him." Shanti Devi's case is also significant for the fact that it is one of the most thoroughly investigated cases, studied by hundreds of researchers, critics, scholars, saints, and eminent public figures from all parts of India and abroad from the mid-1930s on. One critic, Sture Lonnerstrand, when he heard of this case, came all the way from Sweden to expose the "fake," as he thought it to be, but after investigation wrote, "This is the only fully explained and proven case of reincarnation there has been." I don't agree completely with Lonnerstrand--there are many more cases just as amazing as this one. I close my story of Shanti Devi with the remarks of Dr. Ian Stevenson, leading authority on reincarnation, who said: "I also interviewed Shanti Devi, her father, and other pertinent witnesses, including Kedarnath, the husband claimed in her previous life. My research indicates that she made at least 24 statements of her memories that matched the verified facts." If not proof, it is certainly strongly suggestive of reincarnation. |